the purpose of a silent letter.
examples of why it is useless.
1) pterodactyl
2) pneumonia
3) know–with conditions
4) knot–with conditions
5) gnat
6) mnemonics
7) opossum
what the heck is the purpose?! is it only to distinguish words on a page? for instance, i can understand the whole knot and not thing. “i told you not to tie a knot.” but that sure doesn’t help with spelling.
i brought this up with a coworker and he agreed that my boycotting of silent letters is completely justified. he has the same sense of humor i do, so he goes, “so do you mean the pterodactyl that makes my toast or the prehistoric animal?” because for not and knot, there’s an obvious need for a distinction on the page (now someone needs to explain read and read. because technically, the past tense is pronounced red.) but for pterodactyl? there’s only ONE of them. and don’t tell the poor kid to look up how to spell it in the dictionary, because if that kid is anything like me, he or she will go straight to the Ts and wonder why the fuck it isn’t there.
so to boycott, i’m going to say the p in pterodactyl, the o in opossum and the g in gnat. i would try the m in mnemonics, but i fear it’ll end up frustrating me because an m and n are next to each other. i have issues with certain words. like aluminum and cinnamon. it’s like nemo saying anemone. and sometimes, if i’m trying to speak as fast as my mind is going, i’ll screw up animal and say aminal. it’s embarrassing.
curses on you silent letter! be gone!
